The Swiss Brethren

This study offers a new perspective on the question of how the Upper German Anabaptist traditions of the 16th and 17th centuries became part of the Mennonite denominational family. In modern scholarship, it is a commonly accepted usage to apply the group name "Swiss Brethren" to early Swiss Anabaptism starting with the circle around Conrad Grebel and Felix Mantz in Zurich who introduced the practice of believers' baptism in January, 1525. This usage is relatively recent. There are no contemporary Swiss sources which employ the group name "Swiss Brethren" in connection with the nascent Zurich Anabaptists or the early dissemination of Anabaptism in Switzerland. It was not before 1538/39 that the name "Swiss Brethren" first appeared in the sources, but referring to a group in Moravia and southwest Germany rather than in Switzerland. The modern usage of the name as referring to the Zurich and early Swiss Anabaptists goes back to Ludwig Keller (1885). It was introduced to Mennonite historiography by John Horsch and effectively popularized by Harold Bender and John Howard Yoder. Based on a detailed analysis and contextualization of 141 sources which (possibly) bear evidence of the group